


Mile High

by Cherrys_Criminal_Mind



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 11:23:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5373542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherrys_Criminal_Mind/pseuds/Cherrys_Criminal_Mind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a new member of the BAU, the reader, having never flown before, dreads that part of the job. Reid’s love of quoting statistics to everyone around him does nothing to help her anxiety. He does, however, make it up to her in a sweet and unexpected way. </p>
<p>One shot</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mile High

“Wheels up in thirty guys.”

Ah those dreaded words. The words you’d knew you’d hear at some point but hoped it would be a little longer than three days into your new job. 

It wasn’t that you personally were scared of flying you’d told yourself repeatedly. You just…… Didn’t have anything to compare it to. Your mother had been petrified of flying having experienced bad turbulence during one of her of her trips. As a result, she’d flatly refused to take you or your brother on a plane, so any family holidays had resulted in a road trip. By the time you’d reached adulthood, you’d just accepted that driving to your destination was normal. 

When you’d applied for a position within the BAU you accepted that you’d be needed to fly at some point. You were a bit of an adrenaline junkie and loved roller coasters and fast cars. How different could it be right? 

Still, as you’d grabbed your go bag and hopped in the back of Agent Morgans suv to drive the short distance to the hanger, you felt a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. 

“Hey Y/N. Have you been on our jet yet?” Morgan made eye contact with you in his rear view mirror. You nodded. “Yep, it’s pretty sweet looking.” You’d been given a tour when you joined. It did look pretty swanky compared to the pictures you’d seen of normal commercial jets and you hoped that the added luxury would make your first journey easier. 

You arrived at the hanger and boarded the jet behind the rest of team, taking the seat closest to the aisle. Dr Reid motioned to the empty seat next to window “Did you not want the window seat Y/N”. You shook your head. Nope. You didn’t really want to see how high you were thank you very much. 

Spencer climbed into the empty seat next to you and buckled himself in, placing his notebook and case files on the table in front. 

JJ and Morgan took the seats opposite and the three of them started discussing the case you were on your way to investigate. 

The small jet started to move and you realised in horror that you were facing the wrong way. You’d sat mistakenly so that you facing backwards to the way you were heading. You didn’t like that. Still, it was too late to change now. 

As the plane gained speed and began to began it’s ascent into the air, you could feel yourself gripping the armrests. This really wasn’t like riding a roller coaster you thought. Coasters were fun, this was not. 

“Are you okay Y/N? You’re very quiet today.” Agent Jareau asked studying your face. You nodding gritting your teeth “Yeah, I… Um….just don’t like taking off that’s all.” you lied. They didn’t need to know you’d never flown before. You could feel an uncomfortable pressure building in your ears, making it feel as though you were underwater. You’d read about this. The articles had recommend sucking on a hard boiled sweet in order to help your ears pop. You had sweets in your go bag. But that meant releasing the armrests and moving and for some reason you couldn’t make your body comply and do that. 

You started to swallow repeatedly, finding a small amount of relief as every so often you’d hear a pooof noise as your ears popped. You were starting to get a horrible sickly feeling in the back of your throat and stomach and prayed you weren’t going to be sick. You could feel Dr Reid watching you. Of all the team, you liked him the best. He was quiet but attentive, picking up on things that you thought the others would miss. In the three days you known him, you’d already seen that you had a fair amount of common interests, not that you’d had much chance to discuss them. 

“Did you know that under internationally agreed aviation rules, cabin air is maintained at about 75 per cent of normal atmospheric pressure — the equivalent of living in a high-altitude city such as Mexico City.”

You were becoming used to hearing the Dr rambling off useless facts every so often. “You should try the Valsalva manoeuvre Y/N.”

You must have looked confused as he smiled and continued.“Hold your noise and gently blow. It will help.”

You had a quiet word with your hand and managed to convince it to leave it’s grip on the armrest to move to your face and pinch your nose. You followed Spencers instruction and blew gently. POOF. You heard a loud popping sound and suddenly everything seemed terribly loud. 

“Better?” he asked seeing the relief on your face. You nodded. “You can take your seat belt of now you know.”

“Nope. I’m good. The last flight I was on suffered from quite a lot of turbulence, I’d prefer to leave it on.” you lied again borrowing your moms story. 

“You know, turbulence very rarely causes planes to crash.”

You looked at him suddenly feeling very nauseous. You normally liked the sound of his voice but tight now you were willing him to shut up. 

“What we really need to worry about are microbursts - a sudden downburst of air associated with thunderstorms - but small craft like this one, if we hit one of those at the wrong altitude…”

That was it, you’d felt the bile begin to rise and fumbled with your seat belt, legging it out of your seat and to one of the small bathrooms at the end of the plane. Crouching in front of the bowl you began retching, wincing in pain as your stomach contracted pushing your breakfast back up and into your mouth. 

You spat it out, hurriedly pushing your hair back and pulling the hair tie from around your wrist. It snapped and you didn’t have another. “Oh for fucks sake” you groaned. 

You heard the door open behind you, you hadn’t had chance to lock it properly in your hurry. “GO AWAY”  you yelled not looking who it was. You knew you sounded like a bitch but you didn’t care, you’d apologise later. 

You could hear talking just outside the bathroom and felt another wave of sickness hit you. Heaving again you heard the door open once more, you tried to wave whoever it was away but felt them move behind you instead, reaching for the hand the was holding your hair and pulling it back into a pony tail, securing it with a hair tie. JJ, you’d thought as a body sat on the floor beside you in the cramped space and began rubbing soothing circles on to your back. 

After a few more minutes you finally felt empty and grabbed blindly for some toilet paper. The person next to you handed you some and you wiped your mouth and reached up for the flush. Leaning back against the toilet wall exhausted and shaking, you finally saw who your comforter was. 

It wasn’t JJ as you’d thought, but instead Dr Spencer Reid, his long legs crossed underneath him in the cramped space. 

You wanted to feel mortified that you’d had just vomited your guts up in front of him but you didn’t have the energy to. 

“You okay?” He handed you a bottle of water. You took it gratefully and unscrewed it,  swilling some around in your mouth and spitting it back out into the toilet. 

“Sorry you saw that, and sorry I yelled at you.” you croaked meekly. 

“It’s okay, I’m sorry I started rambling about turbulence. I probably didn’t help things. This is your first flight isn’t it?” This is what you’d meant about him picking up on things that the others wouldn’t. 

You nodded “I definitely didn’t expect it to be this horrid.”

“It’ll get easier, trust me. First few times I flew, I could barely leave the bathroom. We’ll find a pharmacy when we land and get you one of those travel sickness wristbands.That should help.”

You spied he’d bought your go bag in with you and motioned towards it.  "I really need to brush my teeth.“ 

“You really shouldn’t you know. Not straight away. You’ll be brushing your stomach acid into your teeth and it will eat away at the enamel. Mouthwash would be better.”

Well he was a genius after all. You pulled out your mouthwash swirling some around and spitting that back out into the toilet bowel as well. Reaching for your compact mirror, you groaned catching sight of yourself. 

Face sweaty and pale, eyeliner and mascara halfway down your face and hair a mess. “My god I look so attractive right now.” you grumbled sarcastically pulling out your make up wipes and hair brush trying to tidy yourself up. 

Spencer laughed. “Don’t worry about it. You look attractive all the time Y/N.”

Your hand stilled as you eyed him. He thinks I’m attractive? You carried on swiping at the mascara marks under you eyes. “ I look like a panda.”

“Well I think pandas are cute.” He smiled at you. “Do you want to go back and join the team. We still have least 20 minutes before we begin our descent.”

You shook your head.“Nah, I’ll stay here. I don’t wanna risk throwing up on any of them. I’m gonna read my favourite book instead. That’ll make me feel better.” you carried it with you everywhere, just in case. 

“Alices Adventures in Wonderland right?” He must have seen you with it at lunch time on your first day when you were nervous. Your mother always used to read it to you as a child, and you still found it calming as an adult. 

“I’m fairly certain it’s still on your desk at hq.”

You groaned, realising he was right, remembering how you’d taken it out of your bag this morning when you were rearranging your bag. 

“I’ll read it to you.” You raised your eyebrows confused. 

“Eidetic memory remember.” “You really don’t have to Spencer.”

“No, but I want to.” he smiled as he closed his eyes and began.  "Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank…..“

………………………………………

Twenty minutes later there was a knock on the door and JJ poked her head around."Guys were about to descend. You need to come and sit back down.” she smiled at you, motherly concern in her eyes. 

Spencer stood up, brushing himself down and then tugged you to your feet. 

You walked back to your seat, the other members of the team nodding at you. You sat back down and buckled yourself in, trying to prepare yourself for what was to come. 

This time though when your fingers started to grip the armrest, you felt another hand on top of yours squeezing encouragingly.

“We’ll be down soon Y/N.” Spencer soothed his voice quiet. 

Across the table you saw Agent Jareau glance at your hands and then nudging Morgan. They both looked at each other, wide grins spreading across their faces.

……..


End file.
